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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24433198">move along more easily</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualromeo/pseuds/actualromeo'>actualromeo</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Future Character Death (??) idk, Season/Series 04, i feel wrong calling it that bcause its not really an addiction so much as a need, withdrawl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 07:22:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,224</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24433198</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualromeo/pseuds/actualromeo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"It’s getting worse. He’s had to confront that, recently."</p>
<p>jon and daisy lay together in the archives.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist &amp; Alice "Daisy" Tonner</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>125</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>move along more easily</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He aches. God, he aches. It doesn’t gnaw like hunger, just gives a steady, dull pulse of hurt across any muscle that has the audacity to twitch. The worst part isn’t the pain, though (or the fever-chills or the dizzy spells or the constant haze), it’s the uncertainty. The uncertainty if this is it, a crest, or just another step on the rocky path down. If this is going to finally kill him.</p>
<p>It’s getting worse. He’s had to confront that, recently. Two collapses, a night spent retching nothing into the single stall toilet and trying to muffle the gagging sobs, all within three days. That’s worse. It’s getting worse. He’s getting worse.</p>
<p>
  <em>he’sgoingtodieohgodhe’sgoingtodiefinallyfinallynogodhe--</em>
</p>
<p>“Mmh,” rumbles against his chest. Right. Daisy. She’s splayed above him, skin cloyingly warm where they connect. Her chin juts uncomfortably into his collar and she’s close enough that her eyelashes tickle his jaw when she flutters them open. “Jon,” she says, a reminder.</p>
<p>Just to feel them move, he twitches the fingers of his right hand, then squeezes, and then reaches. Finds Daisy’s. “Here,” he confirms, wrangling his breath into something smooth and steady. It’s unbearably hot out, even reaching into the usually-freezing basement of the Archives. Daisy does not help, but she grounds, giving an acknowledging rumble, now that she’s deemed him okay.</p>
<p>It feels, perhaps, mean, to compare Daisy to the earth, to soil and dirt. Just, you know. The trauma of it all. But it’s undeniable, and not, really, an insult, however it may sound. Her voice scratches like the gravel in The Buried had irreparably damaged it, her skin is that dry-wet-clinging feel of damp mud, her eyes warm and brown. Almost amber, in the wrong mood, but brown. They’d been green once, she said. The Hunt had stained them red like the Eye had stained his green.<em> Want to trade?</em> she’d said. It’s comforting, that he can dig his fingers into her arms and know that he’ll be held down by the whole world.</p>
<p>The Choke hadn’t been quite such a damning experience for him as it had Daisy. His encounter with Mike Crew had left everything a touch too wide, fish-eyed lenses skewing his world dizzyingly. New claustrophobic tendencies were tolerable if they evened out that awful world-tilting vertigo. He thinks of Smirke’s theories of balance, considering, but the thought leads to Tim. Old grief threatens to rear its ugly head, so Jon casts it aside, focusing on the feel of her breath across his throat. When he works it, he finds his mouth too unbearably dry to speak.</p>
<p>A couple hard-won swallows, and Jon manages, “Is--” before getting strangled. One of her hands, the one not interweaved with his, finds its way to his shoulder, propping her up to look at him through eyes hazy with calm. With sleep, almost, it seems. He probably shouldn’t have interrupted her, but now that he’s started asking, it’s pushing. Right behind his teeth, scratching at his tongue.</p>
<p>Something useless in him cries, <em>no, no,</em> as if pleading with himself will make a difference to the static pooling in the air. He’s not holding himself back, he’s biding his power; he can feel it pressing at his mind and his throat and hollows of his ribs, prickling even in the burn of his hand. “Jon,” Daisy says, alert now. <em>Piece of shit</em>, snarls something different in his mind. Worrying her, irritating everyone, just let it kill him god please.</p>
<p>His mouth opens a fraction and she says, “Hey.” It clicks closed so fast it hurts, tearing through the static and feeling the burn like it had nerves to pinch. All things considered, he thinks her voice should be coming from someplace further. His head is swimming and everything feels miserable, but he’s still exactly where he knows he should be. On the couch in his office, Daisy still a grounding weight on his chest, her voice not inches from his face. Painfully, painfully present.</p>
<p>They’d suggested gagging him once. He even obliged, but he didn’t respond well. Maybe it was the Beholding, maybe it was his pervasive control issues, but he panicked. They’d still cared enough to not force the issue, then. He doesn’t think they would now.</p>
<p>(Would they lock him up? Put him in his office and slip statements under the door? God, god he hopes not. Daisy is the only thing holding him to humanity. Starved of her, he doesn’t know what he might--)</p>
<p>Somehow- this, he is not quite present for- he pulls her down, or gestures her down, or she simply understands, and Jon can bury his face in her shoulder. Grainy squeals of an angry, unfed patron wash over him like waves, an ache twisting into a sharp, stabbing pain. After a certain point, each one passes gentler, throbbing itself down into an ache once more. It’s worse. But it’s manageable.</p>
<p>“Here?” Daisy asks, when Jon uncurls himself from her. He’s sweating, forehead damp. When his eyes flicker to her face, her hair is slicked down with it. Too warm to be holding each other like this. He doesn’t want to let go, doesn’t want to separate. He’s not sure what would happen if they did separate, really.</p>
<p>“Is-- would you, would- would you say it’s getting worse?” he pants. “It’s getting worse,” he can’t help himself from continuing, expression pinched.</p>
<p>Stupid. Anxiety has brought his breathing back up a near hyperventilating wheeze, and she has to wait until it evens, breathing clearly in his ear to assist. <em>Worthless little--</em></p>
<p>She hums. “No, I wouldn’t say that. Not for me.”</p>
<p>Jon swallows. Tries not to think of the implications. Fails. “You were further in it,” he murmurs, tight.</p>
<p>Soft brown eyes regard him. He never would have described her as soft, before all this. “I never died.” It’s a fact. Just a statement of a fact.</p>
<p>Hysteria edges at Jon’s mind, he can practically see it, but he feels strangely, detachedly, calm. “No. No, I suppose you didn’t.”</p>
<p>They sit in silence, before Jon cracks and he lets a bubbling laugh into the air. Just two pained barks, and he’s trembling anew. “Oh, god,” he says, and it’s funny, for some reason. “I’m going to die.”</p>
<p>“Jon,” says Daisy, something with reprimand and empathy in equal measure.</p>
<p>“I’m going to die,” he repeats, digging his fingers in a vice over Daisy’s. “You know it too, I’m.” Then he swallows. Gets a grip. In the silence, he shimmies, wiggling himself down further under her, until she drapes herself back down once more. Her free hand buries in his hair, and it holds. Not tight.</p>
<p>Just holds him here. Drops the subject.</p>
<p>They’re not each other’s anchors to humanity or anything dramatic like that. Just two... things, huddling together for comfort. They each have their own anchor, but she holds him here anyway. He holds her, too, pressing a little tighter into their clasped hands.</p>
<p>Martin’s off with Lukas and Basira’s busy essentially running the Archives. They have anchors to humanity, but neither of them are doing much, right this very moment. So they hold each other instead.</p>
<p>(It would probably be weird, for Jon to say that he loves Daisy. Even if he is going to die. So he tilts his head into hers and hopes that speaks for itself instead.)</p>
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